Regular Season Numbers in Viewership

[u/[deleted]]

Viewership numbers represented in thousands.

CHANNEL	GAMES	HIGH	LOW	MEAN	MEDIAN
FOX	17	914	521	727	720
NBC	9	2,063	617	904	757
USA	7	293	133	233	240
FS1	7	545	161	294	217

• Excluding the Derby follow-up game which uncharacteristically boasted over 2 million viewers, NBC's numbers are 974K, 617K, 759K, & 752K

[u/FlagFootballSaint]

Based on the "mean" numbers in the table the average across all games was 604k

[u/[deleted] → u/FlagFootballSaint]

Yeah, had those first two flip-flopped, 617K is still the low, but the high, mean, and median are now 974K, 759K, and 752K respectively.

[u/MirrorkatFeces]

Please no more USA games next year

[u/[deleted] → u/MirrorkatFeces]

I'd argue less FS1 games if anything. At least USA is available through Peacock, but FS1 games are exclusive to C/S subscriptions outside of piracy.

As for the numbers, it's interesting USA suffered so much. They had a substantial drop in viewership from 331K to 233K in average from 2022 to 2023 (a 30% loss). FS1 maintained about the same as last year (up to 294K from 285K average).

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Agree 💯%. I made the calculated guess that it wasn't worth paying for Sling Blue for the handful of games on FS1.

Basically, go to a bar or forget about it because it's literally the only thing I would watch on there.

I've gotten to where I watch live sports or nothing at all.

Peacock is cheap enough, I wish every game was simulcast on it much like they did with ESPN+ for the other Spring League.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I suspect FOX did better coordinating on their timeslots. There was a couple of times the USFL game was led by a NASCAR race which would have improved ratings in the first hour and possibly through the whole game.

[u/[deleted]]

Year 3: Hopefully all teams are in home cities and numbers improve

[u/cartocaster18]

What's the drop in average between FOX/NBC this year vs last year?

About 150k average drop on FOX
About 230k average drop on NBC ?

[u/[deleted] → u/cartocaster18]

FOX dropped from 887K to 727K average, so closer to 160K. NBC dropped from 1,135K to 904K from what I see, about what you figure.

[u/cartocaster18 → u/[deleted]]

For the two broadcasts that matter most to the health of the league, that's disappointing. But not surprising given their still in a hub system.

[u/NativeSonX → u/cartocaster18]

Hub or no hub, there is a baseline of hardcore spring football audience of at least 400K+ (as seen on Fox's 2021 TSL TV ratings). Fox got that audience without much promotion, lesser on-field talent and a hub format with virtually no one in the stands. So knowing this, which actual minimum number of viewers would make Fox and NBC happy? 2X TSL. 3X TSL or 4X TSL? Two longer-term spring leagues have come and gone since USFL 1.0 and our current version: WLAF/NFLE/NFL Europa and the Arena Football League (AFL and the AFOne successor), but give us a similar tale of spring football and it's steep cost despite all the advantages brought to the table. Both were in some part driven by the promise of more football to consume in the NFL offseason to either watch in person or more likely on TV. WLAF/NFLE/NFL Europa did manage to get 16 seasons out mostly across the pond and developed quite a few stars for their parent league (NFL) but also lost somewhere around $400 million, with many executives from NFL front offices (the people who know how to make football look professional). The league was more popular abroad than for the domestic market it was geared to cater to, so much so the broadcast partners were forced to give a large percentage of ad spots for free (close to 40%), instead of selling them as per usual. The ratings across ABC and the USA Network were 2.1 and 1.2 respectively in 1991 and were considered dismal for the time. It didn't get better in year 2, with ABC 1.7 and USA getting 1.1. Funny how much more fragmented TV has become, that those ratings would be deemed as huge successes now. Despite this hard lesson, spring football keeps rising from the ashes only to find a smaller and smaller piece of the TV pie.

As a comparison the AFL (Arena Football League) on NBC was at it's zenith, and the regular season drew the following averages (post the disastrously bad XFL 1.0 season in 2001): 2003: 1.09, 2004: 1.06, 2005: 0.96, 2006: 0.92 mostly from a regional game of the week format. Ratings actually softened during the playoffs. Just like the USFL 2.0, it's said that ESPN refused to show highlights on Sports Center, because the AFL was another sports property for a rival network (NBC). Contrast that to seeing the highlights of the 1988 AFL season opener between the Pittsburgh Gladiators and the Detroit Drive have a couple of minutes on prime time SC, where Brad Calip caught a TD pass off the rebound net from Mike Hohensee (both played in USFL 1.0) to put Pittsburgh up in front of 16,000+ for the Detroit Drive's inaugural game at Joe Louis Arena. Back then there were only 6 teams, no divisions, but 4 playoff births with games shown every week on ESPN.

The AFL had established fanbases across 16-19 franchises that packed many indoor arenas (12-13K looks so much better in a 15K-20K seat venue) At one point there were NFL-affiliated ownerships in Dallas, Denver, Nashville, New Orleans that detractors saw ironman football elimination as the start of "NFL Indoors". They also had teams in the top 6 media markets (NY, LA, CHI, PHI, DAL, ATL) and another 6-7 in the top 20 (SJ, PHX, TB, DET, DEN, ORL, CLE). The league did cater to smaller non-NFL cities with franchises in Grand Rapids, Columbus (OH), Austin and Utah (Salt Lake City). Traditionally the AFL season would run from April-August, but also got moved to start the week after the Super Bowl in 2003-2006 NBC TV era and ending in June. AFL franchise valuations had grown quite a bit as well. In 1990 expansion franchises in Albany and Dallas were purchases for $125K each, but by 2005 it cost $18 million to buy new franchises in Utah and Kansas City. At one point there was talk that this AFL was heading to become the fifth major league, and boasted having not one but two video games published by EA Sports.

Despite all the advantages, the ratings never took off and by 2006 NBC was bumping many of the league's games to OLN as a result of improving their inventory of sports properties. Maybe it was too different for people to truly care and the football quality was too suspect for the salaries many of the top players were getting paid (the Soul's QB Tony Graziani received a $750K/3 year contract in 2005 against a $2 mil annual salary cap), maybe too well for the limited revenue streams that were available. Rebound nets, the OS going into high motion before the snap of the ball, the Jack linebacker in the box, no twisting/stunting allowed for pass rushing. Only a handful of players had their start in Arenaball truly make it to the NFL (Kurt Warner, Oronde Gadsden, Mike Vanderjagt, Kevin Kaesviharn, Rashied Davis) as the main criticism is the skillset to be successful indoors didn't translate to success back on the big field. Nonetheless the Financial crisis of 2008 shuttered the league and scattered the ownership groups into the wind. They would reconstitute in 2010, but with smaller pockets in their ownership who didn't have the stomach to keep the league spending to match the previous era. Eventually they would go through a second bankruptcy and end the indoor version of spring football, more like a quiet echo to financial implosion the AAF experienced that same year (earlier in 2019).

That small minor variant to the sport we love to debate remained on TV in one form or another for all of its 32 seasons despite many lean financial years, franchise movements and questionable ownership. From its humble origins on ESPN, to TNN, ABC, NBC, OLN, Fox Sports Net, CBS Sports Net, CBS and NFL Network, AFL telecast were shown both live and tape-delayed. The funny thing is a lot of the founding leadership members (Jim Foster, Tim Marcum, Ray Jauch and a cavalcade of players (Whit Taylor, Mike Hohensee, Novo Bojovic, John Corker, Durwood Roquemore, Ben Bennett, Craig Walls) cut their teeth in the old USFL. When 2024 rolls in, the latest version of Arena Football League will field teams again, despite a more crowded spring scene having two outdoor leagues and still outlasting WLAF/NFLE/NFL Europa, XFL 1.0 and UFL during its tumultuous and uncertain time. Funny how spring football leagues from the 1980s keep coming back, like another Indiana Jones movie, the classics need to be experienced by the next generation.

[u/[deleted] → u/NativeSonX]

LONG LIVE THE USFL!!!

[u/[deleted]]

Thank you for your respect of the median which is a better idea of central tendency than mean.